In East Topeka, there are 24 industrial-sized buildings sprawled out more than two miles, several miles of train track, 75 locomotives under repair, 77 locomotives in storage, 224 freight cars and 31 passenger cars.

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After the first track for the railroad was laid at Topeka in 1868, the railroad purchased some idle shops and land for $19,600 in 1878 from J.R. Mulvane and Theo Terry.

In 1911, the shops became famous for building what a local newspaper claimed was the largest steam locomotive in the world, the Mallet articulated locomotive.

While business cycles have varied over the years affecting employment levels, BNSF executives say the shops have a future in Topeka.

"We see them continuing the same kind of role they have been," said Carl Ice, senior vice president of operations for BNSF in Fort Worth, Texas.

The BNSF shops have been under a hiring freeze all year.

Monte B. Johnson, shop superintendent, said the shops are scheduled to overhaul 80 locomotives in what is termed a "classified repair." That number is down from previous years when 100 to 200 classified overhauls were completed. But workers won't be sitting around idle, according to Johnson. Employees will be needed to handle heavy locomotive repairs, engine changes and compressor changes, in addition to repairing rail cars and maintaining the company's 31-car passenger fleet.

"We run 900 to 1,000 locomotives through here every year," Johnson said. "I anticipate that count to increase in the coming year."

Locomotives are stripped down, repaired and then put back together in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway repair shops in Topeka.

In the locomotive shop, employees remove the diesel engine as part of a classified repair. The diesel engine is nearly the size of a tiny Japanese automobile, with 12, 16 or 20 cylinders. The diesel engine runs a generator creating electricity for the traction motors, which drive the steel wheels on the track.

Under a classified repair, the locomotive is given a new life: a rebuilt engine, a new electric generator, a new air compressor for brakes, rebuilt traction motors and renovated trucks, which hold the traction motors and the wheels. The cab is updated to meet government regulations and the air conditioning is repaired.

"I refer to it as an organ transplant," Johnson said of the classified overhaul.

At times, Ice said, the classified overhauls have been contracted out to companies like General Electric.

"We do that when we don't have the capacity to do it ourselves," Ice said. "We had a couple of years where we had a large number of classifieds to do. We didn't want to permanently add that capacity. We didn't want to hire people and later have workforce with nothing to do. That's not a good thing for anybody, not for the company, not for them, not for the community. We've got virtually all the classifieds handled at our two shops."

The other BNSF locomotive repair shop is in West Burlington, Iowa.

The challenge is how to divide the work, said Ice, a Topeka native and Kansas State University graduate in engineering.

"We will continue to strive to be more efficient," he said.

Computerized technology has improved the efficiency of locomotives. A new locomotive can run up to 750,000 miles before needing an overhaul.

Monte Johnson, Topeka shop superintendent, explained how the wheels of the railroad's locomotives are repaired. As many as 1,000 locomotives come through the Topeka shops every year. The number is expected to increase in the coming year.

The Topeka shops were spared in the 1980s and early 1990s when Santa Fe was forced to downsize its shops. The shops in Cleburne, Texas, and San Bernardino, Calif., were closed. After the 1995 merger between Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, the company closed the BN shops in Springfield, Mo.

In 1992, when the San Bernadino shops were being shut down, Santa Fe opened up 352 jobs in Topeka.

About 276 came from San Bernadino to take jobs in Topeka. A year later, 207 were still here, Johnson said.

"In some cases, they brought their entire families to the community, including parents and grandparents," Johnson said. "We've had some families who weren't able to handle the weather and they eventually moved back to southern California, but a lot of folks have stayed and thoroughly enjoyed it."

Johnson worked in San Bernadino for 30 years before transferring to Topeka eight years ago.

The Topeka shops maintain about 33 business cars, which are used for employee appreciation trips, Railroad Days in Topeka and entertaining clients. On Nov. 17, the company used the fleet to take several reporters on a trip from Belen, N.M., to Kansas City, Kan., a route that is part of BNSF's premier Chicago-Los Angeles route. Glacier View, a business car with domed windows that was on the Nov. 17 trip, will receive upgraded heating and air conditioning and reconditioning of its truck assembly in Topeka.

BNSF maintained passenger cars in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

In the early 1900s, the railroad was so self-reliant that if a steam locomotive needed a new part, a machinist would build it on site.

Bob Coon, a Burlington Northern Sante Fe employee, helped rebuild the block of one of the giant diesel locomotive engines repaired at the Topeka shop.

"In those days, you could push a tree through one end and end up with a desk at the other," Johnson said.

Today, many parts are provided by other sources. In fact, locomotive manufacturers General Electric and the Electro-Motive division of General Motors have parts and technical representatives at the shops.

Nevertheless, BNSF still maintains its own steel fabrication plant where employees manufacture parts for rail cars and locomotives.